Rural Remote Health
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Rural Remote Health · Jan 2012
Service contacts prior to death in people dying by suicide in the Scottish Highlands.
Many people who die by suicide have been in contact with health services prior to their death. This study examined service contacts in people in urban and rural areas of the Scottish Highlands. ⋯ Overall service contact rates prior to death by suicide were very similar to the results of a previous meta-analysis. Rates of contact with specialist mental health services were significantly lower in rural than urban areas, and this finding increased with greater rurality.
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Rural Remote Health · Jan 2012
Recruiting and retaining rural students: evidence from a faculty of dentistry in South Africa.
There is a shortage internationally of adequately trained health professionals to service rural areas. Health professionals are more likely to practice in communities that are like the one in which they grew up. The WHO therefore suggests targeted university admission policies to facilitate the enrolment of students from rural areas. In South Africa, rural students have special needs with regard to university access and throughput because they come from the most economically disadvantaged communities and often are the first in their families to attend university. This descriptive study, the first in South Africa with a cohort of dentistry students, draws on data from undergraduates at a single faculty of dentistry in South Africa. It investigates the factors affecting rural students' access to university, their academic success, as well as their employment intentions. ⋯ Only a minority of dentistry students came from rural areas, and rural schools did not adequately prepare these students academically for university. Rural students also lacked immediate access to people with insight into the academic and socio-cultural aspects of higher education, including the process of independent learning. Despite financial and academic challenges, rural students had a significantly stronger commitment to rural employment than students from cities and towns. It is recommended that rural students should receive academic, financial, and mentoring support both before and during their studies.